


Return False- End Function

by donteatmyfingerprints



Series: Multiple Line Syntax [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3140768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donteatmyfingerprints/pseuds/donteatmyfingerprints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root's POV, set during the last five minutes of 4x11.</p><p>Root fights against the hold on her, fights because that is what she does, what they do. They fight impossible odds and come out injured, bleeding, broken; a little less whole- but they come out, dammnit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Return False- End Function

**Author's Note:**

> I normally do humour so, tried my hand at angst. You guys can tell me if I have succeeded.

“If you even think for a second that I’m going to let you-,” Root falters for a split second, and that’s enough for Shaw to respond.

 

“For god’s sake,” Shaw snaps, irritation lacing her voice, whipping around to face Root and shaking off her vice grip.

 

And Root wants to open her mouth to say something, to give a reason why Shaw shouldn’t do this. But words fail her, because she knows deep down, she knows they can’t come up with a better solution. Reese is somewhere behind her, bleeding out, and time is not on their side (Was it ever?). Samaritan’s agents are closing in every second they delay. Her mind is blank as she stares at Shaw helplessly, not quite knowing what to do, except that she _can’t_ do this. She tries to get her mouth to work, to say something that could be a solution, to come up with an alternative route. She’s a logic genius. She’s defeated A.I.s in plenty of puzzles. She’s found The Machine on her own. She’s beat Harold once or twice in his own game. She’s conned scores of people. The Machine chose her, of all seven billion people in the world, for a reason. She doesn’t know that the strange feeling bubbling up in her chest is helplessness. She doesn’t know that yet. In her ear, the Machine says nothing.

 

She drowns in the endless brown of Shaw’s eyes, unable to face the truth.

 

Shaw must have seen something in her face, she must have, because that abrupt shift from annoyance to a soft comprehension cannot just be something she imagined. And she doesn’t want that look on her face, - _take it away-_ too soft for someone so hard like Shaw. A look like that has no place here. It doesn’t suit her at all. She wants angry Shaw, annoyed Shaw, one that doesn’t think things like _there’s no other way_ , or look at her like _I’m sorry_.

 

Then Shaw rolls her eyes, grabs her by her arms, and pulls her in, crushing them together. She feels the hard press of Shaw against her lips, her heart hammering wild in her chest, but not in surprise- in fear. The familiar smell of Shaw invades her senses, and Root inhales her kiss like a lifeline. Her fingers, gripping the front of Shaw’s shirt so tightly a second ago, loosens for a millisecond- because she meant to move her hand to wrap around Shaw, to grip her and hold her close and _pull her_ back in. But the warmth leaves her as quickly as it came, and she’s thinking, _no wait, I haven’t had the time to memorize it all_ \- and she was left chasing the end of the kiss like a fading song trailing off at the close of the track. And too late, she should have remembered. She should have remembered that Shaw was a trained ISA operative, and Root should not have let her guard down like that, or loosened her grip at all. Because that gave Shaw the opening she needed to shove her backwards, and away from the warmth that is Shaw.

 

Someone holds her as she stumbles backward and loses her balance, a hand pressing onto her torso. The earlier bullet wound protests with a burn as she strains her weight. But that is not the same burn that seizes her lungs and constricts her chest.

 

She doesn’t miss the look of _apologetic-wistful-longing-resignation-ache-regret_ on Shaw’s face. It threatens to destroy Root, the sheer gravity of it.

 

It is not fear that wraps its tendrils around her heart now, turning it erratic beneath her ribs. It is not fear. Fear is for the unknown. It is dread; _dread is for knowing what is to come and knowing that it cannot be stopped._ It is a cold and bitter dread that bleeds its way into the spaces between her bones, coating her with heavy mercury; slowing her down.

 

She watches in slow motion, unable to move, horrified, as Shaw pulls down the elevator grill and uses her foot to latch it shut. Shaw doesn’t glance back at her at all.

 

The resounding clang of metal jars her ears, and Root finally gets her feet under her. She reaches out, her shaking hands blindly stretching out. Briefly, she remembers The Great Gatsby at the dock every night, reaching for the green light at the opposite bank, wanting to touch a time that had already passed.

 

 _No,_ she thinks _, no. Not like this, not fucking like this._ Root fights against the hold on her, fights because that is what she does, what _they_ do. They fight impossible odds and come out injured, bleeding, broken; a little less whole- but they _come out, dammnit_. Her feet work clumsily, but they do their job of bringing her to the elevator grill, even as Shaw slips further away from her reaching fingers, and closer to the red button that would secure all their lives, _save_ one. Irony plays its sick little games, while the devil never makes a deal without demanding its price- this, Root is intimate with, knows the sin like her own.

 

 _Sameen_ , she whispers like a prayer to an old God, one who has heard innumerous pleas just like hers in the millions of years they’ve inhabited the earth. One who cannot answer them all. In the midst of the roaring in her ears, her throat is dry and the word escapes her, pulling all coherency with it.

 

A firm hand on the button causes the ground to shudder and groan to life, loud and blaring, the metal walls securing Root in. But it is all background, it is all noise, meaningless as time seems to move too fast, but she is the only person being put on pause and _too fucking slow_ \- Because Root feels it in her gut, the icy dread: she knows she is not the one trapped by these grills.

 

Her mouth opens but for a moment, nothing comes out, because there are no sounds or words in the English language for what she needs to say. Her vision moves with slow, dragging claws, and she sees Shaw fire against an enemy that Root cannot. The sight of the recoil from the gun in Shaw’s hand works like a fingernail on a chalkboard in her chest, the first shot fired snapping something harsh inside of her.

 

More shots are fired, and Root then realizes she is screaming, screaming until she thinks her throat will tear with the force she’s using.

 

She screams, because _coward, Sameen, you fucking coward,_ because _how dare she_ , how dare she choose the cheap way out? The way that meant she wouldn’t have to hide underground, she wouldn’t have to fight their A.I. war anymore. She chose to exit in the way she loved best, in a gunfight, where she doesn’t have to think about anything with adrenaline pumping in her veins, shutting out thoughts. She didn’t have to think about the people she’d be leaving behind.

 

But Root thinks about everything now, her mind an avalanche of a million disjointed and half-formed thoughts.

 

She thinks of Bad Code, the ugliness of the human race earning her disdain with their lack of aptitude, how they reeked of common humanity; so weak, so breakable. But Shaw has never been common, has never been predictable. The Machine did not predict Shaw’s arrival just moments ago, rapidly increasing their survival rate, just as how she didn’t predict Shaw leaving the elevator and bolting it shut.

 

She thinks of the words she’d said to Harold, to be prepared that not all of them will make it out alive. And someone should have told her to look into a fucking mirror, because she _isn’t_ _fucking_ _prepared_. She was wrong. She takes it back, that stupid fucking speech. She takes it all back. _She was wrong. No one is going to fucking die._

 

She thinks how Shaw came to her rescue a year ago, when she was ready to die in The Machine’s service. Shaw rescues them today, because Shaw can be colder than Root and still have a soul, the weakness Root once despised, that wants to save lives. Because Shaw is better than Root ever was, and no matter how many times Root wanted to give her life for Her, Shaw was always there to roll her eyes and save her, and complain about it every step of the way. Shaw thought she was worth saving, when no one else did. She had always been willing to die for The Machine, for what she believed in. Today, Root is not ready to die for The Machine, because she had- _has_ , _present tense! Has, has, has,_ something to live for.

 

Root rid herself of useless compassion years ago, stripping Samantha Groves down to just meat and bone, but she feels that humanity clearly now, and it is anything but common.

 

It is raw and it is agony and it is torment and it is rage and it is rupture and it is sharp and ripping her to fucking pieces – _how does anyone survive this_ \- and Root is weak and bleeding and breathless and utterly, _utterly_ , helpless against the pain at her chest. She grips the grills of the elevator hard, desperately and irrationally hoping that she could somehow tear it down and reach Shaw. _They still have time,_ Root tells herself, _Shaw can still run back before the doors close-_ Mechanical instructions and statistics ring in her ears, but the words don’t register, and Root isn’t listening.

 

More bullets fly, and Root watches in horror as one of them finds their mark, powerless to do anything. She sees splatters of red in the air, the impact pushing Shaw back. But Shaw doesn’t look back at her, not once, even though Root curses and calls her unpleasant names and then somehow ends up begging Shaw to _please, please, don’t do this-_ She doesn’t know if the words even leave her mouth, or if she’s just screaming nothing at all-

They had come so close. So fucking close.

 

All those times Root flirted with her but never pushed too hard, always thinking _it’s more fun to play anyway_. That was stupid, it was all so stupid now- because she should have taken every opportunity to wrap herself around Shaw and never fucking let her go- because she shouldn’t have waited so long to do something about them- but now they have no more time and- there wont be a next time- and it wasn’t enough-

 

A day ago she was dressed in a Bear suit, carelessly teasing Shaw and stealing her drink just to annoy her. Mere minutes ago her heart had jumped in relief and delight as Shaw appeared, and had foolishly allowed herself the luxury of hope. She’d thought, naively, that they had a chance now. They had done this so many times before- cheat death as a team. Just another mission, that’s all.

 

_They had come so fucking close._

 

Root feels Harold and Lionel pull her backward, and she is too weak to fight them off. But she struggles against them anyway, because _what the fuck do they think they’re doing, this is the wrong direction for her to be moving in_ \- Another bullet sends Shaw tumbling, and Root’s breath hitches, unable to stop the strangled sob that passes her lips-

 

-Her vision blurs with unshed tears and she screams some more in vivid, bright hot anger, cursing her own weakness again. Even now her mortal body betrays her, fogging up her sight when this could be the _last_ time she sees Shaw. The elevator doors have closed halfway now, and narrows her lenses further. She cannot do anything but _look_ , as Shaw hits the ground hard. Blood, _so much blood,_ pooling quickly around Shaw. Root feels like she is the one dying instead. Above Shaw stands Martine, lowering her gun to deliver the final blow. Root has never felt so much rage in her life and so much hopeless despair at the same time- rising inside of her like torpedoes from the sea, gaining charge as it climbs higher. Ridiculously she wants to beg the same person she wants so badly to shoot, to _please, please, don’t pull that trigger-_

 

The elevator doors are almost completely closed now, and still Root clings on to cruel and impossible hope. Her weight sags under her, her legs giving out as Lionel and Harold support her. She wants to see Shaw’s face. Root refuses that last image of Shaw to be the one she remembers the clearest, refuses to remember that the last expression she ever saw in Shaw’s eyes was of an apology.

 

She wills Shaw to look up, wants to see her fucking eyes, because _fuck you Sameen, look up and see that I’m coming back for you, how dare you lie there and bleed, are you that afraid of your feelings that you have to do this to escape that conversation, fine I won’t ask you anymore, okay? I won’t fucking push you anymore, don’t you fucking dare leave me now, just as long as you don’t give up, because fuck you, I won’t let you-_ She just wants Shaw to look up one last time, but of course in their lives, that _is_ too much to ask.

 

Shaw is defiant up to the end, neither adhering to Root’s pleas nor surrendering quietly to Martine’s guns; Shaw glares unapologetically up at Martine, and Root suddenly feels an absurd desire to laugh through her tears, because that’s just who Shaw is. She won’t let death take her like a prisoner, because she’d walk straight to death with an annoyed “I made the choice to come; you didn’t catch me.”

 

Dylan Thomas’ poem runs in her mind like a gruesome joke, the words flowing without her permission: _do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light._ And oh, how Shaw had raged.

 

The doors close and everything fades to darkness. The last thing she hears is a gunshot, loud in the silence that envelops the elevator. She doesn’t know when she had stopped screaming, staring blankly at metal, her body frozen.

 

Root thought there would be more. She thought that she’d see every moment between them flash before her, but she didn’t. All she sees is blood, and Shaw’s body as she crumples to the ground. She thought there’d be more. She thought she was supposed to burn with fury forever, but she didn’t understand why it was emptiness she feels now. A black hole where her organs were supposed to be, a numbness settling in her body, like it wasn’t her own. She thought there would be more. She thought people in love were supposed to die in each other’s arms, and have the time to say romantic things to one another. She didn’t think it would be behind metal grills, _watching_ _and_ _doing nothing_ , denied even the simplest form of touch. She didn’t think it would take a total of _ten fucking seconds_. She thought there’d be _more_ _time_.

 

Someone is calling her name, but she doesn’t register them, her ears filled with gunshots that have been fired long ago, _too_ long ago that she cannot undo the damage they have done. Someone slaps her hard and she jerks, turning.

 

“Root. Root, Listen to me, right now,” the words blur together and she finds it hard to focus, her mind replaying images after images of blood, blood, blood. Harold slaps her again, and the sight of that violent action, so jarring and unlike his usual passive demeanor, snaps her into action. She flails wildly, scrambling against the hands holding her down.

 

“Root! Listen. To. Me.” He says forcefully, and shakes her shoulders, “There is nothing we can do for Ms. Shaw right now- Listen! We will come back for her. We _will_. But right now, I need you to focus. I need you to focus because John is bleeding out, and we need to get out of here- I will not lose two people in one day!”

  
It is Harold’s voice rising in volume, shrill and cracking, that makes Root focus on his face. His eyes possesses a wild and distressed quality, a violence burning inside that she has never seen in them. The fierceness changes his face completely, a look she realizes frightens her more than anything, because then it’s true. If he feels it too, then it happened. It’s real, _it happened_ -

 

And then she gets it, knows that it is taking all of him to not fall apart like she is. She tries to collect herself, but there are pieces of her that she never knew existed, and they are all over the place-

 

“I-” She breathes shakily, unsure what she meant to say at all. Her voice sounds far away and foreign. Her eyes dart to John, unconscious and slumped on the floor. She looks back at Harold, willing something to give her direction, to put lucid thoughts back in her head.

 

“I will not lose them both in one day,” Harold whispers quietly, and lowers his eyes to glance worriedly at John. Root breathes in, takes a moment to breathe through the _blinding_ _pain_ that she cannot pinpoint because it is _everywhere_ and _consuming_ and- _No_ , she needs to focus. She takes another deep breath. Harold looks back at her. She listens to The Machine. She leans onto Lionel for support, and he obliges, and then slowly, unsteadily, she stands up. She keeps her eyes locked on Harold’s, drawing from his strength.

 

“We _will_ come back for her,” he repeats firmly, and Root thinks he is trying to convince himself more than her. Because he is the person who has hope, who thinks that there is always good in the world. Root is the person who knows that there’s no chance Samaritan will let Shaw live, if she even survived the multiple gunshots. But Root allows them both the fantasy, accepting this illusion for them both to keep it together long enough to escape, because the alternative- _She cannot fucking handle it right now-_

 

Later. She has all the time in the world later, time _given to her_ as Shaw’s parting gift. Later, she will let her pain eat her alive, and she will let herself go mad. And later still, she will endure her pain quietly, without witnesses. It belongs to no one but her, and she will guard it jealously, brewing it into something potent enough to win this war. She has earned her heartbreak, her grief, in the hardest way possible, and Samaritan will soon earn _her_ _wrath_ and the hell she will rain upon them all. She will _not_ die for The Machine now, not before she finishes the mission.

 

John Reese is running out of time, time also given to him by Shaw. Root will be damned if Shaw gave her life for this, only for her to squander it because she’s a crying hysterical mess. She can almost see it now, Shaw giving her a disgusted face, telling her to get her shit together. Root almost expects her to hear her scolding any second now- _No_ , she reminds herself, _don’t go there_. John. Dying.

 

She narrows her eyes as The Machine gives her instructions. Harold waits, gives her the time she needs, and he sees the moment she regains some semblance of level-headedness. Still, ever the gentleman, he struggles not to urge her, and waits.

 

“Get him up,” she commands hoarsely, motioning to John- but Lionel is already there steadying Reese- She turns to look at Harold once more, because he is her mentor, their leader, the brains behind The Machine. It soothes her, keeps her feet on the ground. He is the reason why they all came here, together. And Root will get them all out, together.

 

“I think we’ve overstayed our welcome, and it’s time for us to go,” she says, and he nods once at her. They turn to face the exit, four fractured but not exterminated warriors, and wait for the elevator’s inevitable stop.

 

 

 


End file.
